


Coping

by belovedmuerto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Coping, Discussion of Grief, EiE, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, emotion, empath!John, experiments in empathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Towards the end of their stay in Sussex (after the events of the Experiment in Apathy series), John goes for a walk on the Downs one afternoon. This is what happens when he gets home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coping

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to the usual people: PrettyArbitrary, thisprettywren, Castiron, and pretty much everyone in the innercircle channel for listening to me whinge about this _ad nauseum_. I've been staring at this fic for so long all I see are words instead of story. So I'm posting it. If there are any major errors, please let me know. 
> 
> As for general empath 'verse stuff: this happens after the Apathy series, but before the next one. There are several stories that happen in this in between space. 
> 
> Also, I started a collection, so all of the stories are there (so I have a place to put these stories to help people find them). It's called Experiments in Empathy. There you can also find podfics and covers and other stories inspired by or taking place in this 'verse.
> 
> Also also, I'm not real sure how much the hurt/comfort tag really applies to this. Except in an emotional sense. So, yanno, don't go into this looking for any major whumpage.

John returns from his walk a bit later than he’d meant to. He’s not in any rush to return though, as he expects that Sherlock will still be hard at work at whatever experiment he’d been working on in his lab when John left despite the extra time he has spent away. (Sherlock had been muttering about decomposition, a subject that never fails to hold his attention once caught.) 

The cottage is quiet and mostly dark in the gloaming, yet still as welcoming as ever. John truly loves it here. He feels just as at home out here as he does in the flat at Baker Street, if not more so. The only other time in his life he’s felt this comfortable, this sense of belonging, was when he was living with his Gran.

He lets himself in the back door and calls, “Sherlock?” 

He receives no answer. John sets the kettle on to boil and rummages in the fridge to see what food they have left, to see what he feels like putting together for dinner. Or rather, which pre-prepared gourmet meal that Mycroft had the delightful catering company leave for them to heat up and eat. They’ve all been remarkably simple, hearty, _amazing_ meals. If he had more money on a regular basis, he’d ask Mycroft for the company’s name so he could order from them more often. John is suddenly famished. Once he’s pulled out one of the boxes, which will be more than enough for the both of them, he heads upstairs to find Sherlock.

Surprisingly, he isn’t still in his lab, which is where John had left him, hunched over something that smelled awful and looked even worse (he hadn’t asked what Sherlock was working on; he hadn’t wanted to know). John wanders further down the darkening hall to the bedroom, which is where he finds Sherlock, sprawled on the bed, reading John’s book by the light of one of the bedside lamps.

“You’re later than I thought you would be,” Sherlock says to the page in front of him. His tone holds no hint of censure; he’s merely making an observation. John cannot feel any ire from him either, no anger that John had been gone for so long, no worry either. Sherlock is actually pleased with how his afternoon went, pleased and excited about his experiment, pleased to be here with John; he’s simply pleased. It’s a lovely, warm feeling, his pleasure, his happiness with life. John wishes he felt it more often; he wonders if there’s a way to make it more permanent.

“Don’t tell me how it ends, please,” John requests, flopping down on the bed next to Sherlock.

Sherlock hums, not raising his eyes from the page. That’s neither confirmation nor denial that he’ll reveal the ending. He probably already knows it, though he doesn’t seem to have made it even as far into the novel as John.

“For once, I’d like to reach the end of a book without you ruining it for me. Some of us like to be left guessing for a while.”

“Dull,” is Sherlock’s only response, dismissive. John’s not sure if he’s talking about the book itself or about John’s request. After a moment, he lowers the book and looks at John. “You met someone on your walk. That’s why you were gone so long.”

“I did,” John replies easily. He shuts his eyes; he can lay here for a few moments before going back downstairs to heat up their meal.

Sherlock shifts closer, sniffs at John, and then John feels him jerk back, a sharp movement, as though he’d been slapped. “You met my mother on the Downs.”

“Yes,” John replies, not as easily this time, as Sherlock’s distress filters through, prickly and sharp. It comes out very nearly a question, and he opens his eyes to look up at Sherlock.

Sherlock jumps out of bed, pacing across the room and back, aggravated and agitated and not even a little bit happy with this knowledge. The ease that being in Sussex generally brings him is gone, whisked away by a single-word reply from John, by the mere thought of his mother being in the vicinity. In the same county. 

John wants to regret that he met Sherlock’s mother; Sherlock’s distress is strong in his mind, sharp and jagged, but after his talk with the formidable Aurelia Holmes, he’s not sure he can. He can regret that this upsets Sherlock, though, and he does. John doesn’t like when Sherlock is upset anymore than Sherlock likes when he is upset. It affects both of them too strongly for the other to be able to feel it with good grace. (Not that this has been able to curb Sherlock’s boredom, the stagnation he feels so keenly. It has, however, made him more aware of it, and more willing to search out things that will help, though this has met with little luck thus far.)

He doesn’t want Sherlock to be upset by his mother’s presence. She seemed like a nice enough lady to John, although intimidating and somewhat formal and even more posh than her two sons put together. He wants Sherlock to be able to spend time with his mum without it making him feel awful; he wants him to at the very least find out if it’s possible. John wants him to be _willing_ to find out, because he knows that forcing Sherlock to do things seldom works out well for anyone involved. Nevertheless, if Sherlock utterly refuses, John will stand by that decision. Sherlock is the one he’s chosen to spend his life with, the one to whom he is permanently bonded. Sherlock is his family, and John won’t side against him.

John envies Sherlock his family, as unconventional, oddly formal, and posh as they may be.

“This is Mycroft’s doing,” Sherlock hisses, threading his fingers into his hair and clenching, pulling tight against his scalp. John nearly winces in sympathy at the grounding ache it sends through Sherlock’s body. “She never comes out here anymore.”

“I think she’d like to see you, Sherlock,” John assures. He tries to soothe Sherlock. John starts to lay out layers of calm that Sherlock throws off with a sharp shrug of his shoulders. It’s second nature, he can’t see and feel Sherlock like this without wanting to make him feel better, or at least help calm him down. It’s instinct for him to care for Sherlock, physically and mentally. Sherlock doesn’t want to be calmed down though, he wants to spit and scratch and hiss like a great big cat. He wants to react, and rail and express his frustration; he doesn’t want to think this through or be rational. Not that he’d ever admit to wanting to eschew rationality.

“I won’t go to that house,” Sherlock yells, hands fisted at his sides now, the muscles in his neck standing out as he strains against the idea.

John can feel the pain that Sherlock still shies away from, like a bone deep ache, like the pangs in his chest John sometimes feels when he thinks about his mum. It is very old pain, and it makes him skittish, like a spooked horse, like the shyest small child. He’s never truly dealt with it, learned to accept it and feel it and keep going. He rarely thinks about it, and he never acknowledges it; he’s never even acknowledged it to John, though he must know that John feels it there, far below the surface, sluggish and slow and soul-deep. 

Before John came along, Sherlock’s preferred method of dealing with his emotions was to pretend very hard that they weren’t there until they went away or else erase it temporarily with drugs. He’d been very good at it, too, keeping them mostly on a deep level, like the water table under a desert, until John had changed everything, only rearing up occasionally when he was sober for too long. This though, he’s always kept even deeper. This is why he’s spent so much of his life hiding his own feelings, hiding _from_ his own feelings.

John doesn’t try to soothe any further, for now, since Sherlock is actively throwing off what he’s offered. There’s no point in exhausting himself projecting at Sherlock if he’s only going to ignore it, to thrust it all away. Maybe Sherlock will let him help later. He can understand Sherlock not wanting it now. In this, Sherlock feels entirely alone, entirely singular in his grief for the loss of his father, just like every other person who has ever lost a parent.

“Maybe call her?” John suggests instead. “Tomorrow? She said she’d be here a couple days. I get the feeling that she just wants a few moments alone with you. She can come here, I can leave.” He puts his hands behind his head and tries to appear relaxed, posture open and unassuming. He’s not pushing, he’s only attempting to be helpful, he’s not forcing Sherlock into anything.

Sherlock puffs up at that, annoyed, affronted somehow, that John would even suggest leaving to give Sherlock and his mother some space. “You shouldn’t have to leave, this is your home too.” 

John sets aside the pride and happiness he feels at that unasked for declaration, at Sherlock’s disgust that anyone would deign to push John out of the cottage, even John himself, even for an afternoon. He can feel that Sherlock knows what he’s doing, that he’s pushing in his own gentle way, but neither of them bring it up. Sherlock is allowing it, for now anyway. “Yes, but she’s your mum. Do you not want to talk to her?”

Sherlock deflates as suddenly as he’d puffed up, his shoulders slumping and his head dropping. “I don’t know,” he says, quiet, looking at his feet. John takes a minute to parse the riot of emotions swirling about in Sherlock’s head. Pain, a lot of pain, old pain, unacknowledged pain. John will have to help him with that; he can’t leave that be. He’s not sure if it’s the doctor in him or the empath, but he wants to lance it like a boil. He wouldn’t be himself if he was at all capable of ignoring his best friend in pain (or anyone, really). Even when he can’t fix things for people, he can’t truly ignore them. 

There’s annoyance in Sherlock’s head too, that Mycroft had somehow engineered this, because he’s always annoyed with his brother (and still hasn’t forgiven him for stealing John, even if only for a little while). 

Sherlock loves Sussex with every fiber of his city-loving being, but he hates the family house as fiercely as he loves this cottage. It’s a confusing jumble, and John imagines it must be exhausting for Sherlock to be in the middle of it. He’s much better about his emotions than he was when they first met, but he is still just about the most emotionally immature person John has ever met.

And this is the man he’s bound himself to. 

John doesn’t really know a whole lot about the Holmes family, about Sherlock’s childhood. But he knows more now than he did this morning, because Mrs. Holmes had told him a little, when they were walking on the Downs and she was trying to explain the strain between her and her younger son, why they hadn’t talked in several years and why she wanted to change that. She was sad, John felt it like a tingle along his skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. She was certain that she’d never be able to mend the rift between them entirely, but she wanted to at least try to close it a bit, decrease the distance. And John could respect that; he keeps trying with Harry for the same reason, because he loves his sister and she’s all he has left. Or all he _had_ left, before Sherlock.

He knows now that Sherlock is the spitting image of his father, and that Siger Holmes had died when Sherlock was seventeen--not a good time for anyone to lose a parent. Sherlock hadn’t taken it well (to say the least--he and his father had been inseparable), and has refused to set foot in the family home in Sussex ever since. 

He also apparently has not ever truly dealt with the grief that his father’s death caused him, and had been incredibly hurt by the way his mother had dealt with the death. She admitted to John on their walk that she didn’t handle it well, retreating from both her children, but more so from Sherlock, who was still a teenager and so much like her husband, a constant reminder of the man she’d loved wholeheartedly and had lost too soon. She had caused the strain between them, and she deeply regrets it.

Sherlock sighs, drawing John from his reverie. “Fine,” he says, still quiet. “I’ll ring her in the morning.”

John nods. “Dinner?”

“Okay.” Sherlock follows him down to the kitchen, leans against the counter being in the way while John puts together dinner, heating up the boxed gourmet meal and a couple of rolls for them, with tea to drink. John doesn’t chide him for being in the way, simply moves him with a hand on his hip, just enough so that John can get what he needs. He tries to soothe Sherlock, just a little, and Sherlock lets him, accepts the sense of warmth and care that John layers over the room; John can feel Sherlock allowing it to lift his mood a little. He can feel Sherlock letting it go for the time being, letting his mind settle back into the room, into the peace and contentment of this place, this space they are sharing. It makes the air of the kitchen feel just a little bit lighter, a little easier to breathe.

\----

John wakes up to a strange but not unpleasant sense of quiet that he knows almost immediately means he’s alone in the house. It’s much later than he’d meant to sleep; but then, this is technically a holiday so he’s not going to beat himself up about it. And then, Sherlock and he had been up until the small hours, reading in bed, talking, and then shagging. 

The bed is empty next to him, the sheets cool to the touch.

Sherlock has gone off who knows where; John can still feel him, there in the back of his mind, nervous and uncomfortable. There’s no sense of urgency to it, though, nothing that worries John. It just makes him feel sad for Sherlock, that he has to do this on his own, that spending time with his mum makes him nervous and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, John shuts his eyes and concentrates for a moment, on ‘are you all right?’, on the way the question feels, sending it vibrating along the link between them.

There’s a sense of shock in return from Sherlock, warm, happy surprise that John is checking on him in this way, followed by a feeling of well-being tinged with sadness and exasperation, _I’m all right, I’m fine, stop worrying John_.

John figures he must have gone somewhere to meet his mother, though he’s not sure where, and Sherlock hadn’t left him a note. Sherlock had to have got up at the crack of dawn; maybe that’s something Aurelia appreciates. John tries to send a feeling of comfort toward Sherlock, a blanket of warmth and care, and then lets go of the link, letting it fade back into the background of his mind, not wanting to disturb them.

He stretches and considers turning over and going back to sleep, but his stomach makes its presence both felt and heard just then. After a few more moments he gets up and heads downstairs towards the kitchen. Bacon sounds like a capital idea just now.

\----

Sherlock is gone for most of the morning. John putters about for a bit before finally settling outside in the rare sunshine. He sits in one of the lounge chairs with a blanket, as there is a slight chill in the ocean breeze, a mug of tea and his book.

He’s still there, dozing in the afternoon sun when Sherlock walks up through the gate from the direction of the Holmes house. John wakes up when he feels Sherlock’s presence so close, blinks open his eyes and sees Sherlock looking down at him.

“Hi,” John says. 

Sherlock doesn’t answer. His expression is entirely, eerily neutral. He twists and drops down to the ground, sitting at John’s feet and leaning heavily against his knees. He lets his head fall back and shuts his eyes. John threads his fingers into Sherlock’s hair, scratching gently at his scalp, and a ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of Sherlock’s mouth.

John doesn’t speak again; he doesn’t ask Sherlock how the morning with his mum went. He doesn’t ask if they’ve worked things out. He can feel it all, there in Sherlock’s head, along with that raw pain, the grief that he’s never acknowledged, never been able to work past.

It’s understandable, John supposes. He knows how Sherlock feels, he knows that it will always hurt. There really aren’t any words for this, nothing to encompass it. It’s loss, simple and painful, universal and unique. It’s like when his Gran died, like when his own mum went away when he was too small to understand what she’d done, too young to help, even though he’d felt her despair the whole time. John was incredibly close to his Gran, and he still misses her every day, even on the days when he doesn’t actively think about her. He misses his mum less, the pain over her loss is more intellectual; the sadness is more that he’d never got to know her. 

It never goes away, you just learn to live with it, learn how to keep going. 

Sherlock never let himself feel it, and still hasn’t learned to grieve. John wonders if Sherlock will even let him acknowledge it, or if he’ll continue to push it away.

Being with his mum has only brought all that to the forefront of his mind, and Sherlock is quiet with it for the rest of the day. John sits with him in that quiet space, in the garden of the cottage, Sherlock wrapped in his coat and John wrapped in the blanket, listening to the distant sound of the ocean and the rustle of the breeze through the grass, running his hands through Sherlock’s hair until he twists away again, climbing to his feet and going inside. John gives him a few moments alone before going after him.

John makes tea and takes it upstairs; Sherlock is stretched out on their bed with an arm draped over his eyes. John sets a mug on the table next to his head and then sits on the other side of the bed with his own tea.

“She always favored Mycroft,” Sherlock says eventually.

John makes a noise of acknowledgement. He’d figured as much, based on what she had told him.

“He always knew what to say to make things better, and I’ve never been good at that. She got closer to him, after Father died, when she stopped ignoring the both of us. Well, she stopped ignoring him.”

John frowns at him; he knows that Sherlock’s mum regrets that, but it doesn’t make it any less awful, or any easier to hear Sherlock talk about it so matter-of-factly.

“You do fine with me,” John says, putting his mug down and stretching out next to Sherlock, close enough that their shared body heat pools between them, warm and nearly solid, comforting.

Sherlock drops his arms back to his side and turns his head to give John a look.

“Well, mostly,” John amends, smiling at him.

Sherlock grimaces in return, but John can feel that he appreciates John’s trying. He turns into Sherlock, eliminating that warm space between them so he can put his head on Sherlock’s shoulder.

“She mentioned that she knows about me,” he adds, when it becomes clear that Sherlock isn’t going to talk about it anymore.

He can feel Sherlock nod, chin touching the top of his head. “I expect she suspects the link between us.”

“Oh?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Just some of the things she said. She’s a brilliant woman.”

“Do you think Mycroft knows?”

“Probably. He may be a fat git, but he’s fairly observant. And Lestrade knows, does he not?”

John’s turn to nod. “She told me there’s been some people in her family that have been psychic. She suspects that Mycroft has a touch of something.”

Sherlock chuckles. “Reptilian DNA, I’m certain of it.”

John laughs, and Sherlock joins him after a moment. 

It’s a way out, away from the grief that never really dies, that Sherlock is finally truly feeling, his wounds still raw and suppurating, not yet faded into scars. John doesn’t know if they’ll ever heal over that much. But John will watch over him and do everything he can to make sure they do, to make sure that Sherlock comes through this. Just as Sherlock makes sure that John comes through his own pain without it destroying him, John will do the same for Sherlock.


End file.
